Euros 2016: The Aftermath

I was really exhausted after the European Championships, but now that I've taken some time to relax and rewind, why not have a recap of sorts.

The European Championships was obviously a big success for Russia. They won the most important title, team gold, which is very encouraging considering it's the Olympic year. 4 individual medals is not bad either, especially with the beam gold for Aliya. Russia has been hit hard this year with the doping scandal that just won't go away, so good news like this got a decent amount of media attention. The Russian Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko didn't actually have anything to say about gymnastics itself, but managed to mention the Euros and how the Russians topped the medal standings with everyone passing their drug tests. Congrats team, the most important thing in the competition was that your pee was clear. Well, he did also say that he wanted to congratulate them and would stop by for a visit. I don't know if he dares though, remember when he visited Round Lake and this happened?

I'd be scared. That's what you get for trying to limit the Queen's reign to two Olympics.

Euros 2016: Congrats Nastia! but i'm tired

The competition is officially over and I'm actually happy, because I'm just so tired. Spending day after day being overly emotionally invested to a bunch of headcases and My Tsaritsa Aliya just takes its toll. So I apologize if I'm not doing too good of a job with the recap of the junior event finals.

Euros 2016: Senior Event Finals w/ the Queen and her gold!

Conqueror of the podium struck again! The Queen graced us with her presence and took the gold. Never underestimate her ever again.

Just wait until balance beam...

...hell yeah!

Euros 2016: TOO MANY FEELS

I'm writing this while watching the US Secret Classic live, so sorry in advance for any incoherence. I'm always incoherent (English is not my first (or even second) language and I resent proof reading), but today I might be even more so than usual. It has nothing to do with the bottle of wine I drank in order to get through balance beam and floor. NOTHING!

But let me tell you about that wine. I thought the competition was going to begin later like yesterday, but it didn't. So I noticed 13 minutes before the competition was about to begin that I had 13 minutes to go and find some alcohol. I was in my comfy unitard pajamas, because Saturday, ya know, so I threw on some clothes, put my hair in a tight bun, no time for brushing, searched for my keys and stormed out with ten minutes to the start of the competition. And I made it back in 8 minutes! That must be a record or something. There were 2 people in the line in front of me at the liquor store but I was patient and I waited and the cashier had trouble with my ID (a passport from when I was 16 lol) and I still made it! Amazing.

So I basically gave the European Championships team title to GB earlier, but that was incredibly stupid of me. Because as I've been telling you, for Mother Russia, bad qualification equals good results. I also posted this on my tumblr before the competition even began:

I have strong evidence that the Russians are going to be European Champions. Today I decided to treat myself to some terribly over-priced non-coffee and walked into a Starbucks. They took my order and asked me to repeat my name twice, like usual. What was unusual, was that when I picked up my coffee, I noticed that THEY GOT MY NAME RIGHT. Yes. Do you know the last time that happened? In 2010. Do you know something else that last time happened in 2010? The Russians winning European Championships. Strong. Evidence.

That is inductive logic at its finest and it held up. IT HELD UP! Russia won with a lot of points to spare. Sorry for yelling "I told you so" again, I'm obnoxious, I know. And there's even something that I didn't mention in that post: in 2010 when Starbucks got my name right, I was in Switzerland! It wasn't in Bern, though, it was in Zurich. They actually asked me how to spell my name and got it right. Amazing. When I was in New York in 2014, they also asked me how to spell my name and still got it wrong! So no gold for Russia in 2014.

But let's begin.

Euros 2016: a terrible, horrible, no good day ending with a gold medal

The junior all around was a wild ride from start to finish, and not in a good way. But do you see the logic? Good qualification, bad competition! It's the way of Russia and we saw that today. Hopefully we'll see the opposite from the seniors tomorrow.

They only one from the top group who had a good competition was Martina Basile from Italy. She qualified 6th, but gave good, consistent performances throughout the competition rising all the way to a bronze medal. The silver medalist Lynn Genhart from Switzerland also did amazing. She qualified way back in 14th, but improved her score by almost two points with brilliant nearly error-free routines in front of her home audience. She was less than 2 tenths from gold, very impressive.

But the winner and gold medalist was the Russian Elena Eremina. She qualified first and ended up with the gold medal, but it was a rocky road. Unlike the other medalists, she was over 2 points behind her qualification score, which tells you pretty much how the day went. Congratulations to her anyway, what was a bad day for her, was still worth gold and the title of an European All Around Champion, quite an achievement. She was the best because she sucked the least, sometimes that's enough. Her total was 54.550.

Meanwhile in Bern...

Let's just say there was a lot going on during the qualification. Aliya certainly didn't come back from the dead for the hundredth time just to end up in second place.

Euros 2016: Senior Qualification

I was going through the pictures from the qualifying and THIS. It's just unfair. She's just warming up in the hassle of the arena and manages to look like a perfect add for bottled water or something. "Take in the pure feeling! Find your inner peace in the small moments of life! Take a break out of the everyday life and enjoy the moment!" Whatever.

Not that I've established The Queen's superiority in looking good, whatever the situation, let's move onto the actual competition.

Euros 2016: I TOLD YOU SO

This was my tumblr ask today and yesterday (before the qualification):

Euros 2016: Golden Baby Swans!

The Russian junior team won team gold ahead of GB and Romania with a huge 4 point lead. I'm so proud! Just look at the happiness and let it fill you, because tomorrow might not go as well.

My baby swans started on their best apparatus, uneven bars, with hit routines.

Euros 2016: Senior Podium Training with Team Hot Mess

Today was the senior podium training. Italian Gymnastics Federation (Federazione Ginnastica d'Italia
who have provided excellent coverage of pretty much every meet this year, thank you very much) streamed some of it on Periscope. UEG had a slightly better stream on their Facebook page. The top teams were all in the last session of the day and it looked like Marta's wonderland with at least 3 teams (including Russia and Romania) wearing the same obnoxious shade of pink.

Russia is never the one to put much effort into podium training, but don't worry, bad podium training and qualification promise good results (just remember Glasgow when the qualification went without falls). Aliya was the MVP on beam with 4 falls, round off single back tuck as a dismount, and she even managed to land it crooked and bounce right off the mats to the hard surface of the podium, like Vika in London. Amazing. Spiridoz was surprisingly the one to stay on with Seda and Melka falling too.

Where things got weird was floor. Melka put her hands down on a double pike, Seda was great and Spiridoz did a dance through with layouts. Afan was a no show and it was Aliya, who anchored on floor, with downgraded tumbling, but otherwise okay routine (for a podium training). The style reminded me of her routine last year. I don't know what the fuck was going on with Afan, she was standing on the sidelines with her clothes on. Aliya also managed to take a bad fall on a mustafina-turn (ironically) and seemed to hurt her ankle a bit, but she walked off afterwards without issues. Meanwhile Melka and Seda were trying to get their wolf turns in order.

I didn't get to see much of vault, the camera was focusing on beam and floor, only a bunch of timers and some blurry DTYs from Melka, Aliya and Seda. No falls. Spiridoz vaulted too, still no Afan.

No one did a full bar routine, only parts. Aliya had her inbars back, but battled with her pak (maybe on purpose, maybe not), Melka face-planted a jaeger and Spiridoz just looked sloppy. You'd never guess how brilliant they are on this apparatus based on their training.

Romania looked solid, especially Catalina Ponor. They actually take podium training seriously. The home team also looked good on floor with Giulia Steingruber as their star and Ilaria Kaeslin having a weird mistake with finishing her routine out of bonds (her ending pose).

Valentina Rodionenko announced on R-sport that Aliya is testing her readiness in AA. Seda and Melka will also most likely do AA. I'll update this post when I know more about what's going on with Afan.

UPDATE:

Afan will only do vault, a minor injury apparently. That means Aliya will have to do floor, I'm not really happy about this. They really should have taken Kapi or Masha K. as a traveling alternate to avoid a situation like this...

Here are the startlists for tomorrow:

For Russia it's

• BB: Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Mustafina 
• FX: Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Mustafina
• VT: Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Afanaseyva
• UB: Melnikova, Spiridonova, Mustafina

I don't really agree with this but who cares what I think. I'll tell you anyway... I think Melka should anchor balance beam. Aliya will set the right tone at the start and hopefully not fall, Seda is good in the middle (less nerves) and Melka should make a nice finish. They should also let Spiridoz anchor bars, milk that score to the lasts tenths, they are going to need everything they can get because of floor. Yeah, floor... Aliya probably needs all the time she can get to tape herself together, so let her go last. It's going to get scary no matter what.

say 'hi' to the bear!

The girls are finally in Bern, all in one piece. Bless the tape that holds those fragile ankles together. We should be especially grateful to have Afan there, because apparently she thought that this was a good idea:

Video, jonka Ксю Афанасьева (@ksenia3333) julkaisi 25. 05ta 2016 klo 2.26 PDT

I need to have a serious conversation with you, Ksyu. It's about the Olympics and my poor little fangirl heart that can't take a Russian disaster which you might cause with this sort of behavior. Stop it.

Aaaand... we're done with Kapi and Seda is in!

Valentina Rodionenko and her mind games/drinking/incompetence/need for attention are in full force again and she's naming new teams faster than I can type. It currently means that Natalia Kapitonova has been replaced with Seda Tutkhalyan (yay!), but I wouldn't call it a sure thing, because this is how Team Russia just operates. Consider it a type of Russian Roulette, just instead of bullets, injuries and disgrace.

I don't think I'll post any further changes into separate posts. I'll just keep updating this and analyze how a team with only Vika and Valentina herself would score when Valentina announces it.

I'm so happy that Seda made the cut (as of now at least), but this also makes me really, really nervous. I think this will be a final chance for her. If she succumbs to her nerves once again, Rio will be a definite no go for her. Unless the entire team is hospital she's the only one left. Just please, please hit Princess Tut! But no pressure...

Beefarm Out of the European Championships

The competition is soon upon us and the team is doing their final preparations before traveling to Bern, which means that it's time to start switching gymnasts in and out of the team in a haphazard fashion. This is seems to always be the way they operate. As I suspected when the team was announced, Maria Paseka won't make it. Like Vika she is experiencing back pain and they don't want to rush her to be ready and risk aggravating it. She'll stay home and keep training for Rio.

You might remember that when the team was officially announced, they put in Seda Tutkhalyan as a traveling alternate. However, around the same time there was another interview with Valentina Rodionenko in which she mentioned Natalia Kapitonova as the alternate. I was pretty skeptical about it since it didn't make much sense, but nothing really makes sense in Russian gymnastics, so now Kapi truly is replacing Beefarm (x).

The Baby Swans for European Championships

Firstly, I don't know how I feel about the scheduling of the junior competition of the European Championships (it's every two years, even-numbered years). On one hand, I like seeing the juniors during an Olympic year because the quadrennium is ending and it gives a glimpse of what is to come during the next one. But on the other hand, the upcoming Olympics takes all the attention away from the juniors because we are so focused on the seniors who are either trying out their upgrades for the Olympics, or battling it out for the last few spots on the teams.

Having juniors at the Euros during odd years would also make sense, because it would give the girls who become seniors during the Olympic year (e.g. Grishy and Melka) a chance to perform on such a big setting before being thrown into the pressures of the senior level right before the Olympics. Most of the Olympic year seniors do get to go to junior Euros, but I think that going two years before becoming senior is entirely different than one year, it makes it less real to me. If that makes any sense. Probably not. Why don't we just have the junior competition every year to settle this out? And while we're at it, the whole AA vs. team situation doesn't make any sense when they still have individual event finals every year. Just seems lazy to me. I remember that there was a good explanation for this weird arrangement, but I don't remember it. Please enlighten me if you know it.


And now I've written half a page before even mentioning anything about the team, it's:

• Anastasia Ilyankova AA (2001) 
• Ulyana Perebinosova AA (2001)
• Elena Eremina AA (2001)
• Varvara Zubova BB/FX (2002)
• Angelina Simakova VT/UB (2002)

This team will definitely try to defend their team gold and fight for top spots in the AA and UB. They should be able to nab some other medals too.

My favorite out of this bunch is Lena. She's very pretty and promising, but unfortunately didn't do her best at nationals. And poor Simakova... She is actually one of Russia's most promising all arounders, but performed pretty underwhelmingly at nationals and wasn't picked for AA. This also means that she won't get to perform on floor, her best apparatus and best chance at finals. Ksenia Klimenko, who basically outshined everyone on this team during nationals, will have to wait for 2018 since she's still too young for Euros. And another great junior who missed the team is Aleksandra Schekoldina. She has the same strengths as ZubZub (BB/FX), but less experience.

Russian team for European Championships is not surprising, but HAPPY MAY DAY anyway

The Russian team for European Championships was announced and there were no changes from earlier, except for Vika, who is still suffering from back pain (more about it later).

It's going to be:

• Aliya Mustafina
• Angelina Melnikova
• Ksenia Afanasyeva
• Maria Paseka
• Daria Spiridonova
• Seda Tutkhalyan (reserve(ish))

The first two have clearly earned their spot. Aliya for just being Aliya, and Melka for having performance of a lifetime at nationals. If I have to actually come up with an actual reason for Aliya having earned her spot, it's her persona. She's the team leader, the girls respect her, love her, listen to her and she can hopefully keep everybody calm with her own calm no bullshit presence. Clearly Afan wasn't up for that role last year. Aliya can also medal on bars, stay on the damn beam (albeit shakily) and most likely come up with a good double twisting yurchenko. As far as I know, she's been training with full loads since nationals, so I trust her to be ready.

Melka is a no-brainer. She can do all around at team finals: passable DTY, good bars, good beam, decent floor. She should also be able to contend for individual medals on beam and bars. Maybe even floor if she gets her connections and the competition has some mistakes.

So those two I'm fine with, but as for the rest...no.